I read with enthisiasm the answer to the query "Enchanting Lyx" in LXF 161 Answers section. I run Lyx on a bunch of different computers, three of them running version 2.0.0, and one of them seems unable to activate a spellchecker, while the other two do fine. The rogue computer, and one of the good ones, runs Ubuntu 12.04 (the "bad" is using a KDE desktop, while the "good" uses LXDE).

I created the (missing) ~/.enchant directory, and the enchant.ordering file. Enchant is installed, of course, as well as aspell, ispell, and hunspell. That didn't work, so I dwelved in the configuration files for Lyx, hand editing the "preferences" file so it would match the spellechecker instruction in the "good" system, but that didn't work either. I did try to "Reconfigure" every time I chnaged somehting, but nothing changed.

By the way, any attempt to activate the spellchecker from within Lyx fails, since the "spellchecker engine" entry in the Tools > Preferences > Language Settings > Spellchecker is grayed out, and no cicking brings it up.

ANy suggestion would be greatly appreciated - I can move my files to a "good" sytem for spellchecking purposes, but it is a pain...

Enchant is only intended for use if you have no myspell (i.e. LibreOffice) dictionaries installed. AFAIK you need to configure enchant (rather than LyX) to use it.

The LyX default is hunspell and, as long as you have hunspell and a myspell dictionary matching the language selected in Documents>Settings>Language in one of the many default paths for hunspell, e.g. /usr/share/hunspell /usr/share/myspell, you should be able to use the spellchecking.

Unless there are reasons for not using hunspell, I would suggest going in that direction. Bear in mind that anything greyed out in LyX means that LyX cannot find something in the path where it expects to find it.

Reconfigure is not relevant as that relates to LaTeX packages rather than LyX tools.

Thank you for your explanation, but something is still missing. hunspell, and myspell, and aspell,...) are all installed, and in their proper directory. Again, I can't find any difference between the installation on my System 76 netbook (Ubuntu 12.04, with LXDE), and the one on my Lenovo laptop (same Ubuntu, with KDE), except the desktops, and that is not a possible cause. The problem on the Lenovo came up already when I had it on 10.04, the previous LTS version. I've lived with it all this time, but it's starting to bug me a bit.

By the way, the Lenovo system has another quirk, which is unlikely to be related, but, what do I know? Libre Office Writer can't come up with the editing window for the formula editor. It puts the link (or whatever it is supposed to be) in the document, but prevents any possible editing, meaning no formula can be typed in.

Neither the Ubuntu 12.04 netbook, nor my Mint 13 netbook display either of this nuisances, so I am a bit lost on both...

Try creating a new user on the system that doesn't work. If it works for them, it is a settings problem, otherwise you are probably missing a package. If it works for the new user, try renaming ~/.lyx for the original user. If that fixes it, it's a matter ofd comparing the contents of ~/.lyx with one of the working systems.

Edit: an afterthought, were any of these systems running LyX 1.x and then upgraded to 2.0?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)

Thanks. The new user has no spellchecking either, so, if it's a missing package, I wonder what it could be (the two netbooks without spellchecking issues started out with 2.0)

However, the computer with this problem did run 1.6 and upgraded to 2.0, even if I don't quite remember how this happened - I am almost thinking I did the upgrade in Ubuntu 10.4 by downloading the 2.0 package from the Lyx site, rather than going through the standard repositories. Could that cause the problem?

Yes, you could have two versions of some files installed. I'd uninstall both versions, making sure nothing is left in /usr or /usr/local. Then rename the config directories in /etc/and ~ and install afresh from the repos.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)

I upgraded from 1.6.x to 2.0 without needing to do anything with the LyX configuration but I have a vague memory of having to run
hunspell -D
before spellchecking worked properly. This is the result of running it on my system:

nelz wrote:Yes, you could have two versions of some files installed. I'd uninstall both versions, making sure nothing is left in /usr or /usr/local. Then rename the config directories in /etc/and ~ and install afresh from the repos.

Geez! I feel really bad You are so right: I had both 1.6 and 2.0 and that's what messed it all up! I apologize for taking your time for such a silly mistake... Thanks so much! It's all fine now, after cleaning up all previous installations, and reinstalling the latest version...